Aston Martin Broadens the Brand

The legendary carmaker Aston Martin is loved and revered in Britain, famed for providing James Bond with his getaway vehicles, as well as having a colorful company history as packed with twists, turns and near-death escapes as the silver-screen secret agent himself.

The road has been far from smooth in the 103 years since the car brand was founded; although it has manufactured a long line of record-breaking racing and sports cars, beloved by celebrities and the world’s superrich alike, Aston Martin has been insolvent seven times since its establishment in 1913.

Still, after being mired in the red since 2010, there are signs that the company finally is steering itself toward long-term profitability, helped by a recent 200 million pound ($249.2 million) investment program.

Under a well-regarded chief executive, Andy Palmer, who arrived from Nissan two years ago, Aston Martin plans to renew its entire lineup of car models in the next six years. That effort began as its successor to the DB9, the £155,000 DB11, was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March (to rave reviews) and vehicle production began this fall at Gaydon, the group’s headquarters and main factory site in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside. In a bid to broaden its customer base in emerging markets and among women, the DBX, a new crossover Sports Utility Vehicle, will be hand-built at a new factory in South Wales from 2018.

Following a 55-year absence, the brand made a glitzy return to the Formula One racing circuit with Red Bull, in a partnership linked to a road car collaboration, the £205 million AM-RB 001. And in September, weeks after opening a flagship store in the Mayfair neighborhood of London showcasing branded handbags, caps and butter-soft leather jackets, Aston Martin even introduced the AM37, a 37-foot powerboat with a price tag of £1.3 million, as it seeks to shift gears and become a global luxury lifestyle brand.

With the wheels now in motion on so many ambitious and high-stakes initiatives (the expansion efforts will increase Aston Martin’s unit output from 4,000 to 7,000 per year), one would expect a sense of pressure and expectation at the Gaydon plant. But the Midlands site, with its futuristic corporate offices, orderly silver-walled single factory floor and glistening moat upon which several parked models appear to float majestically, continues to move at a less-frenetic pace than that of most rivals.

Vehicles and their parts are made at a series of work stations, where a team of 800 workers hand-builds the cars. Once work is competed at one station, the bodies gently move to the next station on the line, buffed by a team of human hands and state-of-the-art robotic technology. Most employees, whether the seamstresses stitching at the leather seats or the paint specialists who spend about 50 hours per vehicle on the perfect finish, draw on decades of experience (although there also is a crop of youthful looking employees on the payroll).

“There is a quiet confidence here, quite simply, because we know we have many of the world’s greatest car technicians in the world on site,” Marek Reichman, the brand’s chief creative officer, said. “They build sports cars like our DB111 with the same level of skill and handicraft as they would a hyper car like our AM RB 001. One takes 215 hours, the other 2,000 man-hours, but fundamentally they are very similar processes — one just takes longer than the other, but they all happen in the same place.”

Aston Martin has made 80,000 cars in its history, he said, with 90 percent still on the road; the number that Toyota would make in three days, given the Japanese giant’s annual vehicle output of five million units.

“Lots of the men and women who work here know that if they turned left down the road, to the Jaguar Land Rover factory, they could earn 20 percent more than they do here,” Mr. Reichman said. “But instead they turn right. And they do that because they love our product, love our reputation and being part of one of the best British auto engineering legacies in history.”

Aston Martin is the last British carmaker not owned by one of the powerful global giants of the auto industry. Volkswagen bought Bentley in 1998; BMW owns Rolls-Royce Motor Cars and Mini.

Ford bought a majority stake in Aston Martin in 1987 but sold it in 2007 to a consortium, including Kuwaiti investors. In 2013, Investindustrial — an Italian private equity outfit that turned around Ducati before selling it to Audi — acquired a 37.5 percent holding. And in 2014, Daimler took a 5 percent stake.

The plan for the future, both management and investors agree, is to make the brand self-financing, better ensuring its chances of long-term survival despite the waning demand for superluxury sports cars. (It now exports 80 percent of its cars, with its largest markets in the United States, China, the Far East and Middle East.)

“When you buy a sports car today, be it a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini or even an Aston Martin, then you are making a decision about yourself, your fortune and how you want the world to see you,” he said. “And we are not provocative, we are more acceptable — at ease with ourselves and a car that people feel comfortable about when they admire.

“We think that the understated beauty the Aston Martin, both inside and out, will resonate more and more in today’s climate. It’s been quite the journey so far. But the best — we hope — is ultimately still to come.”